{"id":658405,"date":"2026-05-08T20:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T20:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658405\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T20:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T20:24:08","slug":"nasas-psyche-mission-to-fly-by-mars-for-gravity-assist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658405\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Psyche Mission to Fly by Mars for Gravity Assist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-block-key=\"0sbsq\">NASA\u2019s Psyche spacecraft will get a boost from Mars on Friday, May 15, passing just 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) from the planet\u2019s surface at some 12,333 mph (19,848 kph). The spacecraft will harness the planet\u2019s gravitational pull to speed up and adjust its trajectory toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, one of the more unusual objects in our solar system.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"8sg2o\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/news-release\/nasas-psyche-spacecraft-optical-comms-demo-en-route-to-asteroid\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Launched<\/a> on Oct. 13, 2023, the Psyche spacecraft relies on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/solar-electric-propulsion-makes-nasas-psyche-spacecraft-go\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">solar-electric propulsion system<\/a> and the inert gas xenon for propellant, gradually gaining speed over the course of its long journey. Psyche\u2019s mission planners are using the Mars flyby to save propellent, letting the planet\u2019s gravity do some of the work instead of the propulsion system alone. But gravity assists like these also offer opportunities for missions to practice and to calibrate their science instruments.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"e7o42\">Read more about the encounter on the <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/blogs\/psyche\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Psyche blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Psyche spacecraft will get a boost from Mars on Friday, May 15, passing just 2,800 miles (4,500&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-658405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}